“Insert random story.”

We had a family reunion last weekend. (a period doesn’t really express all the good stuff in this sentence. Maybe in your mind you should add an exclamation point, if that doesn’t feel too excessive.)(I’m trying to cut down on the drama, though, so I’ll leave the punctuation as is.)
With a total of ninety-four people (who like each other) in one (huge) lodge, there was no shortage of noise, laughter, crying, spades, singing, super cousin cops and robbers, some blood (lips colliding with heads during super cousin cops and robbers), family feud, German chocolate, late night talks, giggling, nail polish, 1AM foosball games, and fun (though I somehow managed to miss the traditional cousin massage. darn it).

My mom finally got to meet David and Brigette’s kids:

And there were plenty of kissing cousins:

Saturday morning one of the little cousins pulled the fire alarm. Until management got it turned off, every alarm speaker was covered by a pillow:

Several of the cousins were still sleeping when the alarm went off. Kristina used the rare opportunity of covering an alarm speaker with a pillow to attempt to go back to sleep:

Having gone to bed way past my bedtime the night before (and pretty much every night for over a week), I went upstairs for a little nap after family pictures that morning. My room (and by my room I mean the quarantine room where all the single cousins stayed) was filled with little kids playing foosball and freeze tag, so I hid in the bathroom. I was just going to sit on the floor for a while with my eyes closed, but then I saw the stack of towels under the sink, so I laid on the floor with a towel as a pillow and took a nap. Because I am five years old and have no impulse control. (I’ll refrain from attempting a joke about bladder control, even though that’s what I thought about the whole time I was writing the last four sentences.)(Because in one of the [many] warped crevices of my psyche, I am a seven year old boy.)

Saturday night we had a variety show, which was riotously hilarious. We had poetry recitations, joke telling, singing, guitar playing, a classical quartet (violin, horn, clarinet, and drums), a recurring bomb demonstration, story telling, an eight-year-old hula hooping while standing on her uncle’s shoulders (while he was walking around)(this is not a lie). We laughed until we cried, then we cried some more, then we laughed some more.
Then we satisfied our dessert deficit with, well, dessert (did I mention we had a 24-hour dessert buffet?!).
After the show, most of us found a cousin or two and played games. I wound up in a Yahtzee game (which I had never played before) with Brigette, Kelly, my mom and Emanuel (who is five years old, super smart, good at being a recurring bomb, and my favorite nephew)(also my only nephew). Emanuel was on my mom’s team, rolling the dice for her. At one point, he needed a five, but he rolled a three and a six. He said, “I don’t think six and three make five. They make about nine.”

Sunday morning, I rounded up Emanuel, Sophie and Betsy to give them the presents I’d brought. When Emanuel saw his Optimus Prime action figure, he sighed, “this is what I’ve always wanted.” Betsy loved her Dora the Explorer slippers, but I totally failed with Sophie. I had gotten her slippers that matched Betsy’s, but Betsy’s feet are smaller. Try as we might (and try we did), we couldn’t make those Dora the Explorer slippers fit Sophie’s feet.
To make matters worse, even though I had chosen a room that was empty of cousins under the age of ten, as Sophie and I were attempting to defy physics and make those slippers work, the room became decidedly un-empty. Three of my cousins’ little girls came in, sank sweetly to their knees and stared at Dora the Explorer longingly. So I led my little group upstairs and gave them all stickers. Then I promised Sophie I would fix her slippers to fit her feet and mail them to her. She replied, “I don’t have a mailbox,” so I offered to mail them to her mommy’s mailbox instead.

After the reunion, the Bob Bausums came back to our house for a couple of days, which we filled with catching up on sleep, sitting around doing nothing, and singing. Aunt Barbara played hymns on the piano while Laura, Rebecca, Angela and I sang. Rebecca, concerning ‘It is Well’: “I’m singing the version I made up.”

Tomorrow is my first official day of spring break. This is my first spring break ever. Yay home schooling. After spring break we’re going to start doing dissections in Biology Lab. We’re all disturbingly excited about this.
During Wednesday’s lab, our teacher told us to be sure to wear closed toe shoes for the rest of the semester because we’ll be dissecting every week. The syllabus says we’re not allowed to wear opened toe shoes at all. Ever.
So I tried to make a joke (if you know me at all, you know this is kind of a lost cause. In fact, I’m a little embarrassed to write it on here. But I believe in full disclosure). I said I was sad I had missed the opened toe shoe days because I thought we weren’t allowed to wear them ever. See? Pretty lame, right? Yeah. It seemed funnier in my head.
Then the real tragic moment occurred: my teacher didn’t get it. So I tried to explain. Pathetically.
Let’s just discreetly say the whole thing ended with a blank look from her and an embarrassed giggle from me.
And we’ll also say (because I’m writing this blog and I can) that it was the explanation that killed it.

Wednesday afternoon we had a tornado warning at school, so we all headed to the designated window-free rooms to wait it out. At first I was just glad we’d gotten a tornado warning before spring break, because at our house we don’t all cram into the bathroom during tornado warnings and where’s the fun in calmly sitting in the living room not panicking?
Then I briefly worried about my family, until I found out that the tornado was too far north of town. Then I worried a little bit that my car would be picked up and thrown down on a house somewhere on Fire Tower Road. Which would mean, of course, that even if it wasn’t destroyed I’d never be able to retrieve it because of the massive demon dogs that live on Fire Tower Road.
Then I decided it was silly to worry because I was safe in a ladies room at school and all my people were safe in our house south of town not cramming into the bathroom. So I finally ended up sitting on the bathroom floor, staring awkwardly at my classmates (“Yeah, that’s right. Let’s just wave at each other awkwardly. That’ll make it better”). And it turns out that tornado warnings are not super fun.

Thursday was so beautiful and warmthat I actually had a productive day. I cleaned out my car (AND vacuumed it)(seriously, if you happen to come to my house, be sure to look in the windows of my car and be impressed)(I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve vacuumed my car in the eighteen months I’ve owned it)(I’m not proud to admit that)(Full disclosure, though). I also washed some clothes, did two loads of dishes, called the Red Cross to make an appointment to give blood this week, switched my calendar to March (which is possibly the first time since I worked at Plumline that I’ve switched a calendar on the first day of the month), made tea, washed towels, and plucked my eyebrows.
I know you’re glad to know all of that. I aim to please.

Wednesday morning my grandfather died. He had been very sick for a long time, so his death was merciful relief from suffering.
Thursday, these flowers were delivered to our house:

I’m all about multi-colored flowers:

but nothing could beat this perfect yellow rose:
Yesterday, we all headed down to McMinnville for the memorial service:

All the Perry boys wore ties:

And I saw my little (big) brother:

Grammy had brought some photo albums for Papa’s kids, so we all spent some time looking through pictures from twenty years ago when we were all ADORABLE babies: